Thank you for visiting my legislative website. It is my honor to serve the citizens of the 13th Senate District in the Illinois General Assembly. On this website, you can learn a little bit about me, my record in the General Assembly, and the services I can provide you. I always welcome feedback from my constituents, so if you have any questions, concerns, or ideas, please do not hesitate to contact me.

"Our work isn't done... We need to be honest with the people of Illinois about what it's going to take to recover from the impasse and move forward toward a stronger future."

SPRINGFIELD — State Senator Kwame Raoul (D-Chicago 13th) issued the following statement on today’s passage of a compromise budget that funds human services and state government operations through January and K-12 schools for the full fiscal year:

Today, along with a bipartisan coalition of my colleagues, I proudly voted for a compromise that will allow schools to open on time, fund state government operations for the next six months, keep road and transit construction workers on the job and provide desperately needed relief to our human services providers.

SPRINGFIELD — State Senator Kwame Raoul (D-Chicago 13th) announced today that he is sponsoring a plan to bring the Chicago Public Schools into line with every other district in Illinois by making its school board a democratically elected body. He will hold hearings in Chicago to

gather input from parents and other community members to ensure fair representation in the transition to elections, which will first be held in 2018 if the measure becomes law.

“Chicago’s children deserve nothing less than full equality with the rest of the state – parity in funding and in democratic governance of their school district,” Raoul said. “It’s time to get this right, and I look forward to working with our parents and advocates to give CPS the government our schools so desperately need.”

SPRINGFIELD — Answering the call President Barack Obama issued in his February speech to the General Assembly, State Senator Kwame Raoul (D-Chicago 13th) secured Senate passage today of bipartisan legislation that would allow Illinois to take the lead in reforming the way states draw the boundaries of their political districts.

The interstate compact, if enacted by 37 other states, would establish a uniform, transparent procedure in which an independent commission redraws each state’s congressional and legislative maps every 10 years, insulating the crucial process from partisan gamesmanship. It would also strengthen protections for minority communities, which historically have been vulnerable to disenfranchisement during redistricting.

“We know redistricting needs to be a more open, less secretive and more independent process – one in which diversity, transparency and public participation are the predominant values,” said Raoul, who in 2011 pushed through a law bringing mandatory public hearings and important minority protections to the state legislative redistricting process. “But President Obama is right that change must encompass red and blue states alike. Illinois is ready to take the first step and challenge other states to join us.”

“The struggle against the discriminatory, unreasonable or ineffectual application of our laws did not end with the abolition of capital punishment… The case for reform is clear.”

SPRINGFIELD — State Senator Kwame Raoul (D-Chicago 13th) reflected today on the fifth anniversary of the signing of legislation he sponsored to abolish the death penalty in Illinois.

“When I introduced legislation to end capital punishment in Illinois, I was motivated by new revelations concerning individuals who were on Death Row for crimes they had not committed,” Raoul said. “Unfortunately, many of the same factors that enabled that shameful situation are still present in our system, and accordingly, we have expanded our efforts to encompass not only the enduring problem of wrongful convictions and false confessions, but policies and cultures that produce unjust outcomes and do not make our communities safer.”